All posts tagged Lower Manhattan

Daily drum circles at the Occupy Wall Street demonstration in Lower Manhattan have rankled area residents.

Before an auditorium packed with anti-Wall Street activists and Financial District residents, Community Board 1 passed a resolution Tuesday intended to quell tensions between the two groups.

The non-binding resolution recognizes the protesters’ rights to free speech and peaceful assembly, but also asks that they address sanitation and noise issues at Zuccotti Park, the half-acre plaza that has served as their base of operations and urban campground since mid-September. All but three board members voted in favor of the resolution.

Tuesday night marked the eleventh time board members have met to address community concerns since the beginning of the demonstration. Patricia Moore, chair of the board’s quality of life committee, said some Occupy Wall Street participants have failed to recognize that the Financial District is a residential neighborhood as well as a business hub. Read More »

Natasha Ellis walked with her father Len in Battery Park near Hudson River on Sunday, after Irene drenched the area as a tropical storm.

By Amy Chozick

Residents of Manhattan’s Battery Park City neighborhood braced for the worst and were largely spared when Irene touched down as a tropical storm early Sunday.

In anticipation of the storm, Mayor Michael Bloomberg issued a mandatory evacuation of the neighborhood, which has a population of around 13,000 people, as well as other so-called “Zone A” low-lying areas. By noon Sunday, residents who left were trickling back into their apartments as the sun peaked through the clouds and the water from the nearby Hudson River subsided.

“It turned out to be a non-event,” said Dan Lenahan, the manager of a high-rise Battery Park apartment building that overlooks the river.

Still, Mr. Lenahan and others took all necessary precautions on Saturday. He instructed residents to evacuate and turned off the building’s main electrical systems, including the elevators and hot water. He marked the doors of those who stayed so emergency workers could rescue them, if the worst happened.

“I’d rather have done all the prep work and not need it then the alternative,” he said. Read More »

Power might be shut off in Lower Manhattan on Saturday and may not return until Monday as a precaution against storm surges expected from Hurricane Irene, Mayor Michael Bloomberg said Saturday morning as rain began to fall in New York City.

“You can plan on the possibility of no power downtown,” the mayor said. Consolidated Edison Co. of New York will make the final decision about whether to cut the power in the coming hours, he said. Read More »

A sculpture of a World War I-era biplane sits atop 77 Water Street in Lower Manhattan. See more photos.

For years, Shawn Hakimian has wondered why a World War I fighter plane sits on the roof of 77 Water Street.

“It’s not every day you see an airplane taking off from a New York City building,” says Hakimian, a developer whose 75 Wall Street condominiums have views onto the roof of the neighboring Water Street building and the biplane that is parked there, on a landing strip lined with runway lights. “It’s one of our buyers’ most commonly asked questions.”

When the William Kaufman Organization built the 26-story office tower in 1970, the owner wanted to adorn its roof with something more interesting than air-conditioning machinery.

“When you’re in a building that’s higher, and you’re looking down, it’s pretty ugly,” says Robert Kaufman, the company’s president. “So we said: ‘what can we do?’ And we got the idea of putting an airplane on the roof.” Read More »

The U.S. subsidiary of Japan’s Nomura Holdings Inc. is leaving its downtown home at the World Financial Center and taking more than 900,000 square feet at Midtown’s Worldwide Plaza, according to George Comfort & Sons, an owner of the building.

The bank’s move is a big score for Worldwide Plaza, a 1.8 million square foot office tower on Eighth Ave., which is now 95% leased. A venture led by George Comfort & Sons and equity firm RCG Longview bought a major stake in the tower on the cheap in 2009, in a deal that valued the 1980s-built tower at around $600 million. Manhattan real estate values have jumped much higher since then.

The Nomura deal is a letdown for the World Financial Center, which has been seeking to sign tenants for more than 3 million square feet of leases that expire in 2013. Read More »

While the gap has existed for years, it has increased recently, luring tenants south. As of May, rent was $23.79 a square foot, according to Cushman & Wakefield, up from $17.73 at the end of 2010.

But it’s not a one-way street. Some Downtown tenants are migrating to Midtown, where rents are still well off peak levels. Tenants heading north include accounting giant Deloitte, which is moving to 30 Rockefeller Center and Gerstein Fisher, an investment advisory firm moving to 565 Fifth Ave. Read More »

It turns out the deal to bring Condé Nast to One World Trade Center is particularly sweet for at least one party: the Durst Organization. That’s because the family-run office landlord, which is paying $100 million for a 10% stake in One World Trade Center, is slated to get paid on both ends of the transaction.

Under the terms of the Condé deal, not only will Durst see rent come in at One World Trade Center, but it will also be guaranteed to get full rent at the magazine publisher’s existing home at 4 Times Square, a Durst building, compliments of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, people familiar with the matter said. The Port Authority is developing One World Trade Center and agreed to sell Durst its 10% partnership stake last year.

For 4 Times Square, the Port Authority has agreed to cover the final five years or so of Condé’s 800,000-square-foot lease that runs through 2019 — a carrot offered by the agency in an effort to woo Condé downtown. (The rent is below market, so the Port Authority believes it will not be difficult to find a tenant that would cover their costs, and they could even see a profit.) Read More »

The festival, now in its 10th year, kicks off Wednesday and runs through May 1, with 93 films playing in venues throughout Lower Manhattan. In a preview of the festival last week, WSJ’s Steve Dollar looked at how the Tribeca Film Festival has evolved, now mixing in big premieres — last year it was the latest “Shrek” installment — with more unpredictable fare. Read More »

The troubled municipal-bond market could force the developer of a skyscraper at the World Trade Center to pay higher interest rates to investors in order to avoid a potential construction shutdown.

Developer Larry Silverstein and the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which owns the building site in lower Manhattan, are planning to sell $1.37 billion in tax-exempt bonds needed to continue work on the 1.8 million square-foot skyscraper known as Tower 4. After being plagued by years of delays from political infighting and financial disputes, the building has risen 19 stories and is on track for completion at the end of 2013. Read More »

The Walkabout is an occasional feature about notable New Yorkers and their neighborhoods.

UNICEF CEO Caryl Stern explores the Financial District near the headquarters of the U.N. children’s philanthropy, which raises money each year through its “Trick-or-Treat for UNICEF” effort on Halloween. Stern visits the Capital Grille, which she lauds for the best filet mignon in New York City, while discussing her group’s projects.